[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11460-11466]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  HEALTH CARE AND MAKING IT IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, before we start on our dialogue--I expect 
to have my colleague from New York here in a few minutes--I want to 
thank my colleague from North Carolina, Walter Jones.
  Mr. Jones, every day and every week you speak on this floor about the 
Afghanistan war and previously about the Iraq war, and you carry a 
message that is extremely important, one that I agree with, and one 
that I would hope that our colleagues here in Congress would take up 
this issue in a very strong and determined way to bring this 
Afghanistan war to an end.
  I thank the President for bringing the Iraq war to an end. And now 
there's yet another task for all of us to do, and that is to end this 
continued use and abuse of the American soldiers. They endure much, and 
it's time for us to bring them home.
  We thank them for their service. We see them as they return.
  Some of my colleagues and I are working on a major effort to try to 
deal with more than 365,000 of those men and women that have returned 
that are suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome, dealing with 
everything from suicides to depression and other issues as they return 
home, and many of them still in the military dealing with those issues.
  We also have the traumatic brain issues, and so there's much to be 
done. And there will be much more to be done for those that are 
currently suffering. And the longer this war in Afghanistan continues, 
the more men and women will be suffering from all sorts of medical, 
physical, and mental issues.
  So, Walter, thank you so very much for what you're doing here on the 
floor day in and day out and reminding us that it's time for us to end 
this war.
  What I want to spend some time on today is really talking about 
America's middle class. The middle class in America has suffered. For 
the last 25 years, the American middle class's circumstances have 
stagnated, and in the last 5 years--actually, 6 years--have seriously 
declined. We've seen this in the statistics. We've seen them in the 
economic statistics.
  The only way the American middle class has been able to sustain its 
economic position has been for both husband and wife or children to 
join in providing the income for the family. It's no longer a single-
person income sustaining the American middle class.
  It is about our policies here on the floor of Congress and the Senate 
that has led to the decline of the American middle class. Specific 
policies have been enacted over the last two decades that have hollowed 
out the opportunities that the American middle class has counted on, 
specifically, manufacturing in America.
  Once, 20 million Americans and their families were in the 
manufacturing sector. They enjoyed a good salary. A good hourly wage 
was available to them such that one individual in that family working 
in the manufacturing sector was able to support the family, own a home, 
take a vacation, buy a boat, provide for the college education. That is 
not the case today. Only 11 million and a few thousand beyond that are 
actually engaged in manufacturing in America today.
  So what happened to the 9 million? They lost their jobs. Those jobs 
disappeared, not from the Earth, but disappeared from America. They 
went overseas. They were outsourced. American jobs were outsourced.
  Why? Well, they'd like to say it's simply the nature of the free 
market system, and, indeed, that's part of it. But that's not all of 
it. A major part of it had to do with specific tax policies and other 
manufacturing industrial policies that were enacted by Congress and 
remained on the books for some 20 years or more.
  We need to address that issue because, if, in fact, it is the 
policies of this Congress and previous Congresses that have led to the 
great outsourcing and decline of the American manufacturing sector and, 
along with it, the American middle class, then there's something that 
we can do about it.
  We make laws. We establish policies. And if we find that there are 
policies that are contrary to the good ability of the American economy 
to prosper and the middle class to prosper along with it, then we ought 
to change those policies. That's what the Make It In America agenda is 
all about.
  The Make It In America agenda is specifically designed to rebuild the 
American manufacturing sector. This is an issue that's been taken up by 
the Democratic Caucus, led by our Minority Whip, Mr. Hoyer, and carried 
on by my colleagues and I. So we're going to talk a little bit about 
that.
  I notice that my colleague from New York (Mr. Tonko) has joined us. 
Mr. Tonko, we were going to start out on health care, but we kind of 
morphed into the issue of the American manufacturing industry and the 
role of the middle class.
  Now, the middle class, I went off on manufacturing and the need to 
rebuild that and the Make It In America agenda, but also, a key part of 
the inability of the American middle class to sustain itself is health 
care. And the Affordable Health Care Act, which the Supreme Court 
recently confirmed was constitutional, is constitutional, is a major 
effort on the part of the Democratic Congress and President Obama to 
provide not only health care, but to lift up the American middle class.

[[Page 11461]]

  So let's hold, for a moment, the issue of Make It In America. We'll 
come back to it in the latter half of this hour. But let's take up the 
health care agenda, which I know you wanted to speak to initially.
  While you're doing that, I'm going to run and get a couple of 
placards that show what it is we're talking about. Please, Mr. Tonko, 
from the great State of New York, part of the East-West team.
  Mr. TONKO. There you go. Always a pleasure to join you on this House 
floor. And thank you for leading us in a very important discussion this 
evening here on the floor.
  It's important for us to recognize that for our business community to 
compete, and compete effectively, they need to be able to contain 
costs; they need to be able to have predictability and stability in 
their day-to-day routine. And I think that the Affordable Care Act 
takes us toward those goals. It is a predictable outcome. It enables 
our small business community to have a sound and well workforce.

                              {time}  1950

  I know that that is in the ether of the mind-set of our business 
community in that they know a productive workforce begins with the 
soundness of a health care plan. We are the last industrialized nation 
to come to the table to begin to resolve that dilemma, and it has held 
back our business community. What we will have with this important 
Affordable Care Act is the opportunity for exchanges to be developed, 
either along the State line or in a national setting, that enables us 
to provide for the opportunities for business and to do it in a way 
that is vastly improved over present situations. Status quo, just about 
everyone agrees, will not cut it. It is unsustainable to continue with 
a system of health care delivery that we currently operate under.
  This, I believe, will be welcome news for our business community. 
They will have the opportunity to address this dilemma which has found 
the business community, the small business community, to be paying 
anywhere from 18 to 20 percent more than industrial settings and 
getting reduced services, or a smaller bit of service package, than the 
industrial setting would get. This allows for better services at 
reduced premiums that will enable them to have that affordability 
factor addressed. To go to the marketplace with that operational motif 
is going to be, I think, a very strong enhancer for the competitive 
edge of the American business community.
  So underpinning, supporting the small business community, is 
important because, as we know, it is the driver; it is producing the 
great majority of new jobs in the private sector in America today. If 
we can take that outcome and enhance it by addressing an Affordable 
Care Act that impacts soundly and progressively and positively the 
small business community, then we are doing something to increase 
America's growth in jobs. We do it also by having the ability to 
provide for various tax credits that go toward the small business 
community, especially for those that have 50 and fewer employees.
  We have seen what an economic engine the small business community is. 
Since time beginning for this Nation, the small business community has 
been that pulse of American enterprise. It has been that predictor of 
soundness, of job creation, and of economic recovery. If we treat the 
small business community with the respect and the dignity and the 
assuredness that it requires, we have done something. We will be doing 
something.
  So, Representative Garamendi, I think it is important to understand 
and to outline that the Affordable Care Act is the beginning of 
providing that foundation for the small business community to have a 
sound workforce, which is essential in this very competitive 
sweepstakes for jobs and landing contracts in that international 
scenario where we all compete for the right to serve the general 
public.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, I am really pleased that you brought that 
up. You have reminded me of a rather lengthy article from The 
Sacramento Bee. I am from California. Sacramento has one of the 
hometown papers, and the Bee was writing a major article on the 
exchange.
  In the Affordable Care Act, there is an insurance exchange, and 
California was the first State in the Nation to follow up on the 
Affordable Care Act's exchange portion and to put in place a law to 
build an exchange. Now, at least our Republican friends think that's an 
awful situation. Governor Schwarzenegger, who was a Republican and is a 
Republican, signed that legislation before he left office almost 2 
years ago now.
  So this article is very effusive and upbeat about the establishment 
of an exchange in that they expect to have it online. What they talked 
about, a lot of it, was of individuals who could get insurance in a 
large pool and have the same opportunities for reasonably priced 
policies as occurs in a big business.
  They also spent a lot of time talking about small businesses. How 
correct you are that the Affordable Care Act really offers small 
businesses an extremely important and heretofore unavailable 
opportunity to get insurance for the employer as well as for the 
employees, and a very big subsidy is available for those small 
companies that choose to buy insurance. Up to 50 percent of the cost of 
the insurance could be subsidized and costs reduced to the employer. 
Now, that's a lot of money. It's calculated at about $4,000 per 
employee if you're looking at an $8,000 or $9,000 policy. So it's 
really an important opportunity. Why is that good for business?
  Go ahead, Mr. Tonko.
  Mr. TONKO. I was going to say, too, that many people will say, well, 
if the option is made available, which it is, why would they choose 
that? Why would they want to spend even if there is a tax credit made 
available?
  Think about it. The sound business community leader is going to want 
to recruit, and when you recruit and get the best employees, you offer 
the best package, and you have, as a result, a soundness in your 
workforce.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly.
  Mr. TONKO. So the management style is driving that sort of benefit so 
that you will reach to the program so as to recruit and retain quality 
workers. I think that driving element will influence it more than 
anything, and then the tax credits will become part and parcel to that 
package, which, as you suggest, can be as great as 50 percent. This is 
a huge cost savings and a sound policy to which they're attaching. So I 
think it's a benefit.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Absolutely true.
  In addition to that, because of the exchange situation, individuals 
as well as businesses find themselves in a large pool.
  Now, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years in 
the nineties and then again in 2000 with an 8-year hiatus in between. I 
understand that, in insurance, for it to work, you need a very large, 
diverse population so that the risk is spread. In the individual market 
today, you can't get that; but in the exchange, the concept is to allow 
all of these individuals and these small businesses to be part of a 
very, very large pool so that they can take advantage of the spreading 
of the risk and, therefore, the lower cost and the subsidy on top of 
that.
  One more thing. I was at a bagel shop. It was in the early morning, 
and I needed a cup of coffee and a bagel, so I stopped at a bagel shop. 
There was the owner and one or two employees--I think there were 
actually three. One was in the back. I didn't see that employee. We 
were talking about health insurance, and there was an excitement by 
this employer because she could get insurance. So it's the employer as 
well as the two employees who were going to be able to get insurance. 
Previously, she couldn't. She was a single mother with a new shop, 
opening it up--pretty good bagels and the coffee was very good. Now she 
can get insurance through the exchange. It was a new shop, and income 
was going to be low, so she could also get the subsidy. For the first 
time in many, many years for this woman--a divorcee whose husband went 
one way and she went the other,

[[Page 11462]]

who lost the insurance--she can get insurance.
  This is part of the Affordable Care Act, and it is specifically 
designed in a way to encourage businesses to provide insurance and, in 
that process, as you say, to find the good employees and keep them. 
It's very exciting.
  Mr. TONKO. If I might add, I know that we want to get into the talk 
of job creation, but if I might add some of the dialogue that has been 
developed in the district I represent--and I'm sure it's not unique to 
the 21st District of New York.
  Again, there is this proliferation of small business that has been 
the driving force and that has really built our economic recovery from 
this painful recession. What you will hear time and time again is, if 
I'm a small operation of 10, 15, 20 people, one person--just one 
person--in that workforce impacted by a catastrophic illness will throw 
the actuarial science into a frenzy. That means that your premiums will 
be adjusted in a way that makes it difficult as the employer to 
continue to afford that insurance or to have the copayments from the 
employees.
  So, as you're suggesting, if you enter this large collection called 
an ``exchange,'' in which many more numbers than 10, 15, or 20 work in 
this concept together, it shaves those peaks, and the shock--the 
premium rate shock--that is dulled is a good thing.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me take that a little further.
  I wish I'd had this law when I was insurance commissioner because I 
used to see this all the time when I'd get complaints. We had a 
consumer hotline, and we would take several thousand calls a week. We'd 
always get these complaints about: They dropped my insurance.

                              {time}  2000

  And we get from businesses, They dropped my insurance. Why did they 
drop the insurance? You said it right on target. Suddenly one of the 
members of the workforce of a small group of people had a significant 
illness. When it came time for the annual renewal--insurance is an 
annual thing that is renewed every year--they heard back, I'm sorry. We 
can't renew you this year because we're changing the market. All kinds 
of excuses. But the reality was there was one sick person in that 
group. This law will end that.
  There's also the opportunity for people that have become unemployed 
in this economy to get a job, particularly if that person happens to be 
50 years or older. That person today has a preexisting condition called 
``age.'' They're beginning to enter that part of life where you're 
going to have more medical issues, and employers go, Wait a minute. We 
don't have a position for you. We're not discriminating based on age, 
but your resume isn't exactly the way it ought to be. It's very 
difficult for a person 50 and older to get back into the workforce 
because of health insurance.
  With the exchange and the anti-discrimination policies in the 
Affordable Care Act, which we call the Patients' Bill of Rights, they 
will be able to get back into the workforce. We're talking about people 
going back to work with health insurance no longer being a barrier to 
employment.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, you cite a very awkward dynamic 
that can be used as a preexisting condition: age. How about gender? 
There are more and more small business startups that are women-owned 
businesses, women working in a small business situation as the 
employer. A preexisting condition is being a woman. It is gender 
penalizing.
  There are many aspects, and the preexisting condition is something 
that's getting more and more attention, especially in the weeks that 
accompanied the decision of the Supreme Court. There was a lot of 
recognition of what was in the Affordable Care Act, and preexisting 
conditions are now being denounced and not being allowed as a reason, a 
rationale for denying insurance. That's a prime aspect of the progress 
made here.
  As I've said in my district: Is it perfect? No. We aimed for 
perfection, and we achieved success. We will continue to work on this 
order of health care in a way that will continue to build the 
progressive nature of the outcome.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. These are all part of the puzzle of putting people 
back to work. As I started this discussion, talking about the laws of 
America, the policies that have been enacted by this Congress and by 
previous Congresses and the way in which they impact the middle class 
of America, that impact has been devastating on the middle class for 
the last 20 years. It is our determination as Democrats to change the 
policies so that the American middle class can once again thrive, so 
that a family can enjoy the fruits of their labor, and so that they can 
enjoy the potential that America brings to them.
  I notice that we've been joined by our colleague from Pennsylvania. 
Please, join us. Thank you for coming in this evening and sharing with 
us your thoughts.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from California.
  I was listening to the discussion, as I often do, and I wanted to 
bring a perspective to join that discussion, Mr. Speaker, as they were 
both talking about health care.
  As one who did not support the health care bill originally, I do 
think it's important to recognize, as has been happening in this 
discussion, what's working with regard to the health care bill, what's 
already been implemented that's making a real difference in people's 
lives.
  The reason I did not support repeal of the health care bill both 
times we brought it up was because I have the fourth most Medicare 
beneficiaries of any district in the country. I have 135,000 Medicare 
beneficiaries. Many of them are caught in the doughnut hole, what we 
have come to know as that gap in coverage in the Part D prescription 
drug program. We are now entering the third year of the phase-in to 
completely close that doughnut hole. Already, people who are in the 
doughnut hole have received a $250 compensation for coverage through 
the doughnut hole. They're getting a steep discount on brand-name 
drugs. Moving forward, as I say in the years to come, they're going to 
completely close the doughnut hole and get coverage all the way 
through. That's something that would not have happened if we had 
repealed the health care bill.
  Small businesses all across the country that struggle with the 
skyrocketing cost of health care that's affecting every family and 
every business in this country, they're getting a tax credit to help 
offset the cost, to provide coverage, if they choose, to their 
employees. That's something that's making a real difference in the 
district that I represent. They are being able to cover people up to 
age 26. Often, they are recent college graduates struggling in the down 
economy. With the job market of today, the parents' plan is being able 
to for a short period of time insure those young adults after they've 
graduated from school and may be in transition in their life or in the 
job market. That's making a real difference for people that I 
represent. For people with preexisting conditions-- children today and, 
beginning in 2014, for adults--they will not be able to be denied 
coverage because of a chronic health condition. That's something that's 
long overdue in this country. Those are all things that have been 
implemented. They're in the law today. They're taking effect, and 
they're impacting people. We can't overlook that.
  The legal issues have been decided. This is settled law now. What we 
need to do is make sure--especially with the Medicaid ruling, which was 
not talked about as much because the court focused on the mandate. But 
with the States being able to opt out on the Medicaid side, we have to 
find a way for health care providers to be guaranteed coverage for 
people who come to their door, whether they be a hospital, a physician, 
a long-term care facility, whatever it may be. When the health care 
bill was put into place, before it became law, the deal that was made 
in return for universal coverage covering people in this country was 
the providers--all those provider groups I mentioned--gave a little. 
They understood they had to take some cuts to help offset the cost of 
that, the cost to the government and to the taxpayer.

[[Page 11463]]

Now the court has said that States can opt out of part of that through 
the Medicaid program. We need to make sure that those health care 
providers are able to keep their end of the bargain and the government 
keeps their end of the bargain by finding a way to cover everybody.
  I did want to add that perspective again as someone who didn't 
originally support the bill. There are things that are working and have 
been implemented, and I commend both my friends from California and New 
York for having the discussion tonight.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us, and thank you for 
bringing that perspective.
  Twice, now, our Republican colleagues have voted for a full repeal of 
the law, and you very correctly and, I think, almost totally pointed 
out the things that would disappear. The doughnut hole would open up 
again, the preexisting conditions, the patients' bill of rights would 
be gone, and the insurance companies can then re-engage in 
discrimination, as they have so often. All those things that are very 
positive would disappear. So we're fighting fiercely to keep them. As 
Mr. Tonko, our colleague from New York has said, We will work through 
the years ahead to improve and to deal with the unknown issues that are 
certain to arise.
  We've got work ahead of us, and we can do it.
  Mr. TONKO. I just wanted to speak to the issue that Representative 
Altmire raised with the doughnut hole--such a sweet label thrown onto a 
hidden attack on our senior community, asking them to dig into their 
pockets when they hit the threshold of $2,930 and up till they hit the 
threshold of $4,700.
  I can tell you painful, heart-wrenching stories that many of the 
seniors I represent--and again, I have a huge proportion of seniors in 
my home county of Montgomery County, New York. Many will reach that 
threshold early in any fiscal year. It's a phenomenon with the 
prescription drugs. Those prescription drugs are their connection to 
quality of life. It's not only keeping them well and healthy; it may be 
keeping them alive. There are far too many heart-wrenching stories of 
people who will cut their prescription or their pills in half so that 
they can balance their budget. That is not the way to respond to their 
medical needs. They are told by their physician what that prescription 
drug intake is to look like for their wellness or their getting well. 
We ought not cause them to be pushed to the brink where they actually 
adjust their intake of prescription drugs just to meet a budget.
  This closing of this doughnut hole, making prescription drugs more 
affordable, where we finally in 2020 close it completely--I mean, 
people have realized already billions of dollars of savings. There have 
been 5.3 million seniors that have received $3.7 billion in savings.

                              {time}  2010

  Is that something you want to take away? So when this House, with the 
majority, the three of us obviously said no, but when the majority said 
repeal, why? What's the replacement? We didn't hear replace, we heard 
repeal, and it left many stunned in this Chamber because the progress 
just begun to be tasted was attempted to be pulled away, and it's 
regrettable.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we heard many, many things during that debate 
last week that are just, I think, incorrect and inaccurate.
  One of them was that the Medicare program was cut and benefits taken 
away from seniors. It didn't happen. What happened was that about $50 
billion a year of expenditures going to the insurance industry 
unnecessarily, an unnecessary bonus was removed, that was about $160 
billion, about $16 billion a year; and then there was the Medicare 
fraud. That is a big problem and other adjustments, but no reduction in 
benefits to seniors and, in fact, significant increases.
  Mr. Altmire talked about those with the drug benefit, as you did. 
There was also the prescription drug savings, which, Mr. Altmire, you 
raised. We also know that every senior now has a free annual health 
checkup, which is an exceedingly important way of keeping seniors, 
well, anybody, healthy. You get a checkup--we got blood pressure 
issues, diabetes issues, other kinds of medical issues--you get ahead 
of them, and then with the drugs you can keep ahead of them. There are 
many, many improvements in the Medicare program that are as a result of 
the bill.
  Mr. Altmire, I know that you have been spending a lot of time on 
these issues, and I thank you for your participation here tonight. If 
you would like to expand on maybe some experiences in your own 
district, go for it.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I appreciate the gentleman opening the door for that 
issue, and health care is just one issue facing American families in 
the country today. I know that this group that meets periodically when 
we're done with session to have these discussions, as I'm sure both of 
my colleagues do, Mr. Speaker, I hear from people in my district after 
these discussions show up on people's TVs.
  I hear from people all over the country, in fact, that say you need 
to continue talking about the job market, continue talking about 
infrastructure repair, something we have talked about at length, talk 
about health care, talk about issues facing small businesses and 
working families in America, because that's something that I think gets 
lost in the politicization that takes place in a Presidential election 
year. We're starting to head towards that time of the year when 
politics trumps everything, and it's unfortunate because what gets lost 
is these are real people. These are real Americans that are suffering 
in the job market.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me just for a moment. I noticed in our gallery 
two gentlemen, soldiers, who are here, both of them wounded in the 
wars. This is part of a group that comes in here every day when we're 
in session to watch what we're doing. They just stepped out the door, 
and I wanted to catch them before they left to recognize them for the 
services that they provide. They may come back in, in which case I will 
interrupt you again.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Absolutely, I would agree. I had a chance to chat with 
them earlier today, and there is no group that should stand ahead of 
our Nation's veterans when it comes time to making Federal funding 
decisions, so I'm glad that they are joining us today.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, they are coming back, and I just want to, maybe 
the three of us can simply recognize them for the service that they 
provided to this country. I suspect that, normally, I see a gentleman 
that's always escorting them here in the gallery. Normally, they come 
back with some wound or another, and that's difficult; but I want them 
to know, and I would ask you to join me in this conversation, to know 
that this House, Democrat and Republican alike, are determined to make 
sure that all of our men and women that are returning from the wars, 
and those that have served even though they were not on the field of 
battle, deserve both our respect and whatever services they need, 
veterans services, medical services, and a job.
  I thank them for coming here.
  Mr. Tonko.
  Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi. Let me also thank our 
military, our active forces out there as we speak who are defending us 
in some very far-off places, deserted deserts and mountains that 
extract great courage and commitment to this Nation and her cause.
  You know, again, so many veterans returning are looking for work. 
There ought not be a battlefield in their homeland to find a job, and 
it's why the American Jobs Act makes it possible for businesses to 
realize benefits when they hire our veterans, when they hire the active 
military that are returning, and that's a commitment that ought to be 
understood by all of us. That's a commitment that should be part and 
parcel to unanimity in this House. Let's go forward with something like 
the American Jobs Act.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, this is the only thing that's actually been 
done. When the President last September proposed the American Jobs Act, 
the

[[Page 11464]]

second thing that he talked about was the veterans jobs bill, and it 
kind of languished around here for a couple of months. It was early 
September when the President spoke.
  Then came this special day every year called Veterans Day, and all 
435 of us, we would go home, and we would go to the veterans parades 
and, lo and behold, we came back and we found compromise, and we found 
bipartisanship and the veterans jobs bill actually became law shortly 
thereafter.
  Mr. TONKO. But the full package could have been done, which allows 
for even more opportunity for our veterans if we're hiring police 
officers and firefighters and educators, teachers. We're building the 
fabric of the Nation and the infrastructure, the human infrastructure 
that's required to educate our young, protect our neighborhoods, make 
certain that we're there in response efforts when tragedy hits. These 
are the things that can also in a broader sense affect positively the 
employment factors for our veterans. That full package offered the 
greatest hope.
  The fact that we would nitpick and that we would be pushed to 
pressure points and finally acknowledge the work getting done is not 
the way to achieve what we know has to happen out there. We've seen the 
growth, Representative Garamendi, of private sector jobs, 29 
consecutive months of private sector job growth, well beyond 4 million 
jobs.
  It is a wonderful number, but still a lot of work to do when we think 
of the Bush recession and the loss of 8.2 million jobs. Now people want 
to take us back to those failed policies that saw us losing as many as 
800,000 jobs a month and say that's the way to move forward. That's 
moving backward. We need to move forward with efforts like the American 
Jobs Act.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, before we carry further with the American 
Jobs Act, I know that the two veterans who were here in the gallery 
were headed out the door when I recognized them, I saw them leave and I 
wanted to thank them for their service. I suspect that they were headed 
off to some other meeting, or wherever they were headed; and I don't 
want to keep them here, but rather just to thank them for their service 
and to know that 435 Members of this House care deeply about your 
situation, what you're dealing with, and all of the others that are in 
the field and have returned, in providing the extraordinary service to 
this Nation.
  Thank you very much, gentlemen.
  Mr. TONKO. Yes. We are, in fact, very proud of their efforts and very 
proud of the training they endure to be able to be the greatest force 
on the globe, and so we thank them for that.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly.
  Now the American Jobs Act had many, many pieces to it; and this is 
one of the great what-ifs, you know, one of the woulda, coulda, 
shouldas. What if back in September this House had actually taken up 
the elements of the American Jobs Act. There was, I think, almost 
250,000 teaching jobs that were in this piece of legislation. There was 
also almost the same number of police and firemen and public safety 
officers in the legislation.
  It didn't happen and so I know that in my daughter and son-in-law's 
own school district there have been layoffs because of the economic and 
financial circumstances of the State of California, and the class size 
went from 22-23 to 33-34, an extraordinary burden on the kids.
  When you're in the second or third grade, you never get a chance to 
go back and repeat. That's a lost year, and that will carry through 
perhaps all the rest of your life, that you missed that opportunity to 
really advance your education.
  Just on the educational side, you go, whoa, what if we had another 
280,000 teachers in the classroom across America today? How would that 
advance the well-being of our children? I think it's very clear they'd 
be far better off, far better off. But it didn't happen.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, you're offering a very powerful 
statement, a powerful challenge, the what-if.
  When you take that statement and failure to commit to our Nation's 
children and then contrast that with what's happening in competitor 
nations, where they're investing in education, investing in higher 
education, investing in research, investing in advanced manufacturing, 
these are the challenges that are facing us as a government, as a body, 
as a House of Representatives.

                              {time}  2020

  And if we do not respond accordingly, we're holding back the Nation. 
We're actually pushing us backward. This discussion here in this House 
ought to be about moving us forward--moving us forward with progressive 
policy and investments of human infrastructure.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. So the President also talked about building the 
foundation for tomorrow's economic growth. This is the infrastructure 
of the Nation--a big word, but one that I think most Americans 
understand as being the roads, the bridges, the railroads, the 
sanitation systems, the water systems, the research, the schools. We 
delayed--I guess all of us, in some respect, but really the Republicans 
in this House controlled this--the transportation bill. We delayed the 
implementation of the reauthorization of the transportation bill until 
the middle of the construction season. Just 2 weeks ago, we actually 
passed a 2-year transportation authorization program--very, very 
important and very beneficial. But what if that had happened last 
September? We lost half of a construction season and States and 
localities were unable to plan and put in place the projects that they 
needed to put in place because of the dilly-dallying and the delay that 
went on here.
  We'll take some of the blame on our side, but we don't control the 
legislation. It's controlled by our Republicans here. Ultimately, they 
were unable to even put a bill out. The Senate did put a bill out; and 
I thank Senator Boxer from California, the lead author on that, and the 
minority leader, and in her committee the two of them came together 
with a bipartisan bill. It finally got done. We're thankful for it.
  But the President wanted to go beyond that. He wanted to establish an 
infrastructure bank, one where we could literally invest some public 
money, some private money, and go about building projects that have a 
cash flow, like a toll road or a sanitation plant or a water system 
where people pay a fee and there's a cash flow so that we can really 
build the infrastructure of this Nation. But it didn't happen.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, as you're speaking, I'm thinking 
of those ``golden moments'' in our history replete with those 
statements made by the Nation--this Nation--of investing, especially in 
tough times.
  You know my district. I've described it several times. It's the 
confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers and the donor area to the 
eastern portions of the Erie Canal. In very tough times, Governor 
DeWitt Clinton proposed--
  Mr. GARAMENDI. This was the Governor from New York, not from 
Arkansas.
  Mr. TONKO. Right. He proposed a canal system, in tough times, saying 
we need to invest our way through this. There's a way to grow a port 
out of this town called New York. And there's a way perhaps that there 
will be a ripple effect, which there was, with the birthing of mill 
towns, a necklace of mill towns that became the epicenters of invention 
and innovation. And it drove a westward movement so that it headed 
toward California. It drove an industrial revolution, sparking all 
sorts of opportunity and activity, driven by a pioneer spirit that is 
unique to this Nation.
  And our collection of stories of journeys to this Nation with people 
embracing nothing but this noble dream--an American Dream--that 
transitioned a rags-to-riches scenario, that's what it's all about. 
It's us in our finest moments. And why not today, as we have these 
inordinate needs to invest in the people, invest in jobs, understanding 
the dignity of work, underpinned by the effervescence of the pioneer 
spirit that is, I think, part and parcel of our DNA. It is within our 
fabric as a Nation

[[Page 11465]]

to have that pioneer spirit. We're denying it. We're denying that 
spirit.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, you just talked about history here. Actually, 
your Governor, DeWitt Clinton, really did lead a major infrastructure 
project. Now, California was the Gold Rush. It's very interesting to go 
back through the old writings; and the folks from the East, New York 
and around, traveled up the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes to Chicago 
and then from there on. And they also left--and these are my 
relatives--the port of New York, which was built as part of the 
infrastructure, to travel to the Panama and then across the Isthmus of 
Panama and then up the coast of California. So my own relatives took 
advantage of those two infrastructure projects that you talked about.
  However, your Governor was building off some of the work of the 
Founding Fathers. There's a lot of talk around here that there's no 
role for government in the economy. Well, George Washington disagreed. 
And his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, disagreed. And they had 
a debate with Jefferson, who thought that we ought to be an agrarian 
State; and George Washington and Hamilton thought there was a role for 
industrial and for manufacturing. And so George Washington in his very 
first days as President told Alexander Hamilton to put together an 
industrial policy for America. And there were about, I think, nine 
points or maybe 12 points in that industrial policy. One of them was: 
build the infrastructure. It specifically said canals and harbors.
  So this goes back to the very beginning of our country. What the 
President wanted to do and what we Democrats want to do is to build the 
infrastructure, the foundation upon which the economy grows. And we can 
do it. We can pay for it because every dollar we invest in the 
infrastructure immediately turns around and develops $1.75 of growth in 
the economy. So it's not money down a rat hole. It is money that builds 
the foundation and then expands the economy immediately. It is the very 
best way to put people back to work immediately, together with 
education.
  Mr. TONKO. The reach that we ought to make to our history, to let it 
speak to us, the reach we ought to make to the boldness that we 
embraced in times that preceded us ought to speak to us, ought to feed 
our soul, ought to feed our mindset. The courageous steps that we were 
asked to take that we took together as a Nation, committed to a cause, 
this is the sort of leadership that I think is required. The President 
is asking us to respond in very challenging times to these orders of 
investment.
  Now, I can tell you in my district, the birthplace of the Erie Canal, 
mill towns that have achieved and changed the quality of life of 
peoples around the world, we're watching nanotechnology, semiconductor 
science, advanced battery manufacturing, chips manufacturing, a growth 
area happening within the capital region of New York, all built upon, I 
think, a public-private sector partnership, government inserted in a 
way that provides for the priming of the pump that goes where you 
absorb risk which, perhaps, the private sector won't take. And we're 
now seen as a global center of operations in certain areas. And it's 
growing and it's expanding. Now is not the time to walk away from that 
progress. Now is the time to invest in these dreams--these American 
dreams that people have always seen as the nobleness of the American 
saga.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I want to just pick this up. I do want to come back to 
our manufacturing policies before we wrap up here. But before we do, 
just to pull together the American Jobs Act that the President proposed 
back in September, A, folks, it did not increase the deficit.

                              {time}  2030

  The program was paid for, paid for by changes in the tax policy of 
the United States, policies that the President continues to talk about 
today that we eliminate the tax benefits that go unnecessarily to the 
oil company, the oil industry. Some $5 billion to $15 billion a year of 
subsidy is going to the wealthiest industry in the world. Pull those 
back. And the extraordinarily low taxes that have been available to the 
super rich, the top 1 percent, restore those to the Clinton era tax and 
other tax proposals that he had made so that the proposal was fully 
paid for--not decreasing the deficit but rather putting people back to 
work and creating the jobs that are necessary to move the economy and 
to get the American middle class back into the game so that they can 
prosper and so that we can rebuild those American manufacturing jobs, 
the 9 million jobs in manufacturing that were lost between 1990 and 
2010.
  Keep in mind that over the last 29 months, there has been private 
sector job growth every one of those 29 months. And so when people say, 
no, no, it's not good; say, it's not good enough, but at least it is 
happening. Men and women are going back to work in the private sector. 
The public sector continues to lose jobs and continues to shed jobs. 
But on the private sector job side, in part because of the policies 
we've been talking about here and the inherent strength of the American 
entrepreneurial and business spirit, people are coming back, not as 
strong as we want, but if the American Jobs Act were in place in its 
fullness, we would be moving towards a more balanced budget, reducing 
the deficit, and putting people back to work. We're not there yet, but 
we've not given up on this. And one of the major pieces in this is what 
we call Make it in America, because manufacturing matters.
  I know in your district you've been talking a lot about this Mohawk 
Valley and about this great history. I'm not going to let you continue 
on without saying, hey, I'm from California. And we know 
entrepreneurship, and we know about the next generation of jobs and the 
next innovation. But New York still is there, and we'll vie with you 
for the best in the Nation.
  Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. And I see the order of progress, 
Representative Garamendi, that we've achieved in that private sector 
that you just outlined. And it's regrettable that the solution for 
which the President is calling to provide for the public sector side, 
which would speak to greater numbers of employment, because we've taken 
that 4 million-plus in the private sector and reduced the overall 
results by losing some public sector opportunities which speak to 
soundness of community, public safety, educating the young, and 
providing for public protection out there. These are important aspects 
of quality of life. They ought to be embraced.
  So we've denied part of the President's agenda. We've recognized the 
success and strength part of his plan, but there's been this partisan 
divide, there's been this holding back on progress because perish the 
thought if the White House should look good in this comeback from a 
recession.
  Well, you need to place--we need to place the public good, the 
Nation's good, ahead of partisan divide. It is absolutely essential. 
And to then criticize the President by restraining some of the progress 
that he's been trying to cultivate and saying he's not cleaning up the 
mess quick enough, well, there was a huge mess delivered just before he 
assumed office--8.2 million jobs is a tough situation from which to 
walk forward from. And I think that there is a solution there, and we 
ought to work and put America first, the needs of this Nation first so 
as to be able to continue to walk forward and not negate any of the 
progress that we're achieving.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me pick up one of the issues the President has 
been talking about recently, and we actually worked on this more than a 
year and a half, almost 2 years ago, and that was the tax policy. At 
the outset, I talked about policies, tax policies being one of them. 
American tax policies until December of 2010 actually allowed and gave 
to American corporations a tax reduction, a tax break when they 
offshore jobs. Send a job oversees and reduce your taxes. Hello? How 
could that be?
  I don't know where it came from, but that was the law of the land 
until the

[[Page 11466]]

Democrats, then in control of Congress, pushed through a piece of 
legislation that ended $12 billion a year of tax breaks for 
corporations that offshored, sent jobs oversees.
  I will just note parenthetically that not one Republican voted to end 
that extraordinarily damaging tax proposal that rewarded companies with 
lower taxes when they offshored jobs. Not one Republican voted to 
repeal that law. However, the Democrats stood together, the President 
signed that, and it is now the law. There is still about another 4, 5, 
maybe $6 billion of tax breaks that companies get when they offshore 
jobs. We've been working to eliminate those, and the President talks 
about it very often. He also talks about something that we should do, 
and that is to reward the onshoring of jobs.
  When companies bring the jobs back home, they should receive a tax 
break. When you want to send jobs offshore, you should receive a 
penalty and certainly ought not receive a tax reduction. Now, that's 
good public policy. It hasn't happened. We don't control the House of 
Representatives, and all tax bills have to start in the House of 
Representatives. So we keep pleading with our Republican colleagues, 
please, please, give American corporations a tax break when they 
onshore jobs, and end the remaining tax breaks for offshoring jobs.
  Mr. TONKO. Let me tell you, that is welcome news to my manufacturing 
base. I hear it all the time. They support the efforts of the President 
to reward those who produce jobs here in the U.S. and where we provide 
benefits for returning jobs, onshoring them as you suggest. That is 
welcome news. That is welcome news to the manufacturing base, as is the 
call for action by the President for investments in advance 
manufacturing. And I know that's compete and compete effectively, and 
to allow for job growth to come via the private sector base.
  We need to invest in that new day of manufacturing. It is not dead. I 
refuse to submit to this notion that manufacturing is dead in this 
country. It is alive, it is well, and it needs to be retrofitted so as 
to be advanced in nature and in character. Let's get moving forward, 
and let's, again, reward those job creators, not paying people to 
offshore or send out of this Nation. Our hugest export was jobs in the 
decade preceding this administration.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You talk about reward and about tax policy, as was I. 
And let me give you another one, and I know that you and I are working 
on this together: tax policy. Right now we provide, we Americans 
provide a tax credit, a tax reduction, for those who put up solar 
programs or wind turbines. The thing is, that's our tax money. The 
question is, where is it being spent? Is it being spent on American-
made equipment, or is it being spent on foreign made equipment? All too 
often, those tax subsidies are used to purchase foreign equipment.
  This piece of legislation which I'm working on together with Mr. 
Tonko, H.R. 613, basically says that if you're using our tax money, for 
example, the Highway Trust Fund tax money, for buses, trains, or 
building roads, then you must spend that money on American-made 
equipment. Similarly, with solar and wind, if you're going to get a tax 
credit, if you're going to use American taxpayers' money to build 
something, then it's going to be made in America. We're going to return 
the American manufacturing by using our tax money on American-made 
goods and services.
  Mr. Tonko, we're nearing the end of our time. Why don't you take a 
run at wrapping? I get the last 30 seconds. You take the next 90 
seconds.
  Mr. TONKO. Let me do this quickly, Representative Garamendi. We're 
the greatest nation in the world. I believe our greatest days lie ahead 
of us. Let us take our golden moments in history when we were faced 
with heavy challenges, where we responded accordingly with the belief 
in the worker, belief in the American way, the pioneer spirit, and did 
it in an order of investment.
  Let those solutions-oriented moments speak to us today. We need the 
soundest of solutions, we need the respect for the American worker, and 
our greatest days lie ahead. It's a spirit of optimism that we should 
embrace, a history that ought to challenge, feed us, and inspire us. 
With that, I thank you for yielding this evening.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, Mr. Tonko, thank you for joining us this 
evening. I thank our two gentlemen from the armed services who were 
here earlier. And, yes, our best days do lie ahead. It's about public 
policies, it's about the entrepreneurial spirit, and it's about 
America's desire to be the best. We're going to make it in America. 
We're going to make it in America because we will, once again, make 
things in America. We will rebuild the American middle class.
  It's about policy, it's about the spirit of America. It can be done 
and it will be done, and we're here to see that it does get done.
  Mr. Tonko, thank you for this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will remind all Members that it is 
not in order to bring to the attention of the House an occupant in the 
gallery.

                          ____________________